How do most people cope with repeated 5 week months in this country?

[woody87]

DH and I lived overseas for a number of years, fortnightly pay was standard in almost all industries.

Since moving back to the U.K and both commencing work with the NHS I am astounded that people just put up with repeated 5 week pay cycles.

NHS pays on the last Thursday of the month in Scotland, however nursery fees (£800) are due on the 27th of the month with no exceptions and the latest date that council tax, British Gas and my mortgage company will accept is the 28th!

Therefore this month I had to pay almost £2k of bills out of savings three days before we were due to be paid and I fully accept that I am in a fortunate enough position to actually have a small amount of savings that can cover this.

What on Earth do people do if they don't have savings? Overdraft? Then incurring fees that go into the banks pocket?

This country is a fucking riot.

A friend of mine is Australian and paid off their mortgage for years earlier than I did simply because they got paid fortnightly.

it was about 10 grand in interest that they saved

Perhaps years of living overseas and being paid differently has skewed my views on this.

The move back wiped out all of our savings therefore when we started work we were paying bills out of the wages we received that month and that's just continued. To move our bills to the 1st at the moment would mean we would have to effectively pay them out twice from this months wage.

Most of the comments here indicate that people have a large buffer to cover their bills.

This. I'm a teacher in Scotland, so similar- Thursday before the last Friday of the month. Your initial problem was setting up 27th/28th, so you're paying in arrears essentially. I have everything I can on the 1st of the month (except the odd thing which is the 10th/ 12th as that's when they were set up and can't be changed). This means I can see clearly what I have pretty quickly after pay day.

I've never heard of fortnightly pay! Is that common practice in the US?

As PPs have said: I get paid 12x a year and I pay my bills 12x a year so I've never really thought about it before.

The only system that I know is different is in Germany where quite often the annual pay is divided into 13 rather than 12 monthly installments and you receive double pay in December (but obviously, less pay in the other months).

I was paid my monthly salary on Thursday 26th of May and then not paid again until today. How is that not 5 weeks?

Cross-post. I don't have a large buffer at all. But I get your point that you'd need to pay 2 sets of bills to move DD to the 1st. It's how I've always done it, but can see it's impossible for you.

I do all my direct debits around 4th of month so money is in by then.

Same.

Ignore the pedantic PP. For the purposes of PAY there are usually a couple of 5 week months in the year. It means 5x food shops and 5x petrol fill ups. I hate them.

The OP just means that due to being paid on the last Thursday of the month, sometimes there are five weeks between pay cheques, even though they get paid monthly.

I get paid monthly and bills are due monthly. Regardless of date their due, I budget a set amount from my pay to cover all bills due each month. Its not difficult.

Being paid fortnightly would require much more complicated working out of what proportion of each pay was needed to cover forthcoming bills.

Well you keep money aside for the bills rather than spending it. I don't understand how that's not obvious?

You say this but if you ring them and say you want to move billing date to the 1st you normally aren’t charged a whole extra month - just a week or so. Appreciate that may not be doable.

I think your question is just: help, we’ve got behind with our bills due to our move! Totally understandable and poor you but it’s not due to the country being a “fucking riot”…

It's worse for people on UC. I know a single mum who gets paid 4-weekly so gets 13 wages per year but UC is assessed monthly meaning that for 1 month each year she isn't entitled to UC and loses out on the help she gets with rent and childcare, so unless she can find £1,700 to cover it (her wage is less than £900 so no she cannot afford it or 'set it aside') she is in debt and at risk of losing childcare places and her home. Her employer won't put her on a monthly pay cycle which would resolve the issue.

We were in Australia for a long time and I generally never felt short of money due to being paid every two weeks. Granted we were on higher salaries but the cost of living was very high (although tbf with the way things are now that gap is closing)

Last working day of the month here, and DDs go out between the 1st-5th.

On the longer months you get paid slightly more, so you don’t routinely need “a huge buffer” - you leave that bit in there to cover the following months and eventually it all evens out.

I can see it isn’t working great for you right now and that’s frustrating. I think it’s more to do with you having moved back without savings tbh, it reminds me of when I first started working, before it’s all evened out.

You get paid 12 times a year. You pay all your outgoings 12 times a year. I don't see how that is difficult to organise. Just move your DDs to 2nd of the month.
If you're splitting your income into 2 weekly payments, your DDs would have to come out at different times of the month and the weeks would fall at different times in the month. That's much more confusing.
The places I have worked have subbed people to get them through the first month if there have been financial difficulties.

It can be annoying, but it does mean that you started work and were paid on (for example) 28th April, which should have covered all bills in May. Most people would pay mortgage 1st May, council tax 15th May etc. What you seem to have done is spent all of the April pay and needed the May 28th pay to pay the bills at the end of the month which has then continued. Most people cope because don't do this. I don't use a buffer.

Doesn’t impact or bother me in the slightest

We definitely do not have a large buffer to cover bills, but we do pay our bills from our previous month's pay. I agree, it's a pain - I got into the same month cycle with my broadband (but luckily just that). So either you let your savings take the hit one month, or you start a new saving pot (£20 per month or so) until you have enough to pay two months' bills in one month, and then you are golden. You could combine both and pay your £20 back to your savings, but you'd probably want to look at interest rates etc. to see if that is worthwhile.

I still don't really get what the issue is. If you know you're paid on the 28th and you have to pay all your bills on the 27th, just make sure you don't spend the bills money. Put it in a separate account, or just don't spend it. If you can't do that, the problem isn't the 5week months, it's your income/outcome balance.

So I suppose that’s how I “cope”!!

Either set all dd/standing order to 1st of the month or pay bills money into a separate account.

I've done a mixture of these throughout my 25 year working life when I've been paid weekly/4 weekly/monthly, never ever felt hard done by on 31 day months over 28/30 day months.

I think you are not grasping that you still have the same number of pay days, and bill dates, just that extra few days some months.

It’s true it is quite hard to switch from one pattern to another.

You need to consider your NHS salary payment as money for the next calendar month and that way will work. The bills account also a good idea.

Watch out for December when they will pay about a week earlier than usual I think 🤔

Like many other pps, all our bills come out of a separate account on the 1st. We get paid on the 23rd and 27th I think, or early if they fall on a weekend.